When it comes to the graphics
industry, we tend to focus on the high-end products more so than the mainstream
and low-end -- we like to associate graphics with powerful GPUs that are
capable of rendering the latest in Crysis-like
eye-candy.
With the recent launch of such high-end cards from AMD as the Radeon HD 3870 X2 and NVIDIA's upcoming GeForce 9600GT, we have forgotten about the lower-priced
cards from each company.
It just so happens that AMD launched some of these more affordable products
which pack features found in the latest higher-end cards. The AMD Radeon HD 3400 and HD 3600 series are the
newest products in AMD's graphics.
The Radeon HD 3400 series includes two models - the
HD 3450 and the HD 3470. The Radeon HD 3450 is based on the RV620 LE GPU while
the Radeon HD 3470 comes with the RV620 Pro chip; both of which are
manufactured using the TSMC 55nm process, feature a core clock speed of 800 MHz
and 40 stream processors.
The main difference between the two
is that the HD 3450 will feature 256MB of DDR2 500MHz memory while the HD 3470
will feature 256MB of the faster 950MHz GDDR3 memory both flavors routing data
to the GPU by way of a 64-bit memory interface.
The Radeon HD 3600 is the new mainstream series with
the Radeon HD 3650 being the sole model in the series. The card features the
RV635 Pro GPU with 120 stream processing units but is offered in two different
versions.
The first variation of the Radeon HD
3650 will feature 256MB of 800 MHz GDDR3 memory while the second variation will
feature 3 tiers of 500MHz DDR2 memory at 256MB, 512MB, and 1GB all routing data
to the GPU by way of a 128-bit memory interface. Each model will feature a 725
MHz core clock speed but will not support Hybrid Crossfire capabilities.
Other key features of both the Radeon HD 3400 and HD 3600 series’ include
DirectX 10.1, Shader Model 4.1, and PCI Express 2.0 support. Additionally, each
series will feature ATI CrossFireX Multi-GPU technology that will allow two
graphics cards to work in tandem to split up the work.
Pricing for the Radeon HD 3400
series has been stated within the $49-65 range while the Radeon HD 3600 series
ranges in price from $79-99 depending on the amount of memory on the card.